lO 



Gardens for Small Country Houses. 



CHAPTER II.^-TWO GARDENS IN FOREST CLEARINGS. 



Woodgate, Four Oaks— Virgin Woodland— Emerson and Reginald Blomfield on Design 

 — High Coxlease, Lyndhurst — Rock and Water. 



THE building of houses and making of gardens on woodland sites raises problems 

 of treatment and design that need careful thought. Where shall the axe 

 play and when shall the wielding of it be stayed ? Once the trees are down 

 the outlines of the scheme cannot be altered. As example is more valuable than 

 precept, we may in this chapter examine two fine gardens that have been stolen from 

 the wild— Woodgate, Four Oaks, and High Coxlease, Lyndhurst. To few people is 

 it given to build their homes in such an ideal setting as six acres of virgin woodland, 

 as it was to Mr. W. H. Bidlake at Four Oaks. Woodgate stands in a triangle between 

 two roads and once formed part of the great park which the statesmanlike Bishop 

 Vesey caused Henry VIII. to grant to the Warden and Society of Sutton Coldfield. 



About eighty 

 years ago Sir E. 

 H a r t o p p ex- 

 changed some 

 land near the 

 park gates for 

 that part of the 

 Corporation's 

 forest land 

 w h i c h was 

 known as Lady- 

 wood, and the 

 latter is now 

 being built over, 

 but the ameni- 

 ties are well pre- 

 served. It thus 

 came about 

 that llr. Bidlake 

 found himself 

 the owner of a 

 site that had 

 never known 

 t h e h a n d of 

 man, a happy 

 circumstance 

 w h i c h , i oined 

 with his skill both in planting and design, has brt)Ught into existence a 

 veritable little garden paradise. The woodland had the unusual charm that 

 most of its growth was indigenous-^oak and holly and silver birch. These 

 are varied by mountain ash, firs and Spanish chestnut. Beneath the trees 

 the ground is carpeted in the spring with hyacinths, which are followed by 

 bracken. When Mr. Bidlake went to Woodgate the soil had never been 



FIG. II. 



-woodgate: steps and gakden-house. 



